Discussion: Jian Lee

Hi, everyone! Sorry for posting this a day late—I wasn’t feeling too great last night and decided to rest earlier than usual. I’m feeling a bit better today, so here I am! I’ll try not to miss another day for the rest of the celebration. 💜

For this post, we’ll be talking about Jian Lee! His name remains the same regardless of whether we’ll be talking about the one from Coalesce or the one from the DNAU-verse. To make things easier, I’ll simply add “Coa” or “DNAU” in front of his name so that there’s no confusion on which Jian is being discussed—at least in the culmination part of the post! 

With that out of the way, feel free to click down below if you’d like to know more about him! 

DNAU!Jian came around during the same time that I thought of Noriko Inoue. I don’t remember if I mentioned this tidbit during my post for Nori, but a fun fact about the two characters is that they originally started out as race bent versions of (DNAU) Peters and Aether. That was an idea for a short time, though, and I eventually decided to make them their own characters with their own motivations and all. After liking their overall look and getting my own vibe for each of them, I chose to make them their own characters and was interested in seeing how that would go. 

A month after coming up with the character of Jian, I decided to pair him up with Mack. This resulted to them meeting at the bar, with him serving as Mack’s bartender. The two would proceed to hit it off, and their plot continued with them sleeping together one night only for Jian to freak out about it the next morning and proceed to avoid Mack for reasons the latter barely knew. While unresolved at the time I was writing for the DNAU-verse, the easiest explanation I had was that Jian was someone who preferred not getting attached to anyone. 

An early label I had for Jian was “Double Agent”, and this was because of his abilities as a conman. Back in the DNAU-verse, Jian was someone who was usually called by Kenichi Matsumoto for either his skills as a conman or because of his preferences towards arson. It’s worth noting that unlike Matt, Jian wasn’t really an employee—he was simply someone who got called from time to time for a job. There wasn’t so much loyalty towards Kenichi, but there at least was some kind of respect between the two that went on behind the scenes. Jian’s role as someone who played on both sides extended towards his personal life as well; by day, he would find himself working as a bartender for The Cage and kept that appearance up. Come nightfall, however, Jian seemed to live a completely different life as someone hired by Kenichi and as someone who was generally feared due to his arson. While the public never found out who was behind the crimes, the fear remained nonetheless. 

"Can't blame me."

Getting into Jian’s character, though, as he was created in late 2014 and with me starting to plan Coalesce around the middle of 2015, I didn’t quite get to develop him as much as I would have wanted. What I knew about him back then was his charisma and confidence while acting as a conman, and his refusal to get attached to anyone. 

With Coa!Jian now in the picture, it’s easy to see that the newer Jian definitely has some hidden layers to him. More than anything, Jian is now sullen—he’s mysterious, he hides a lot more, he has his own opinions and beliefs about the world. The Jian at present takes matters into his own hands and goes beyond the act of arson; there’s something this time that motivates him enough to take matters into his own hands. Without spoiling much about the plot, Jian is one of those in the M9 who start out with a very black and white kind of view on the world. As the story progresses, however, he genuinely starts seeing the grey and has second thoughts about his own established perspective, wondering if it was truly the right way to see things. 

At the same time, though, he retains the fear of attachment that his DNAU counterpart had. What happened in the DNAU still happens in Coalesce; he sleeps with Mack, realizes what he’s starting to feel, and ends up shutting himself away. He has his own reasons for doing so, though; I feel that Jian didn’t have the easiest of childhoods and that this contributed to whatever fears and apprehensions he may have in the present. He has bigger motivations, bigger fears and whatnot—and I feel that this makes him a bit more of a difficult character to really pin down. He's someone who ends up falling a bit deeper than he initially expected; but when moved just enough, he's also the type who would genuinely find a way to get himself out. 

That's all for today! Couldn't reveal too much about Coa!Jian without releasing some intense spoilers; and while I am the type who likes to release some hints here and there, I'd rather not just to keep things just as mysterious and intriguing as Jian is as a character. So for now, I guess you guys will have to wait! 😉